According to a state auditor's report, the Mandeville mayor, who recently announced his admission into an alcohol treatment program, has quite the nasty patronage habit.

Do unto Eddie, ye who would do business with Mandeville, and Eddie shalt do unto you.

Legislative Auditor Steve Theriot, released a report Monday that includes admissions from Rick Meyer, the owner of his city's preferred engineering firm, and real estate developer Don McMath that they had paid for and flown with the mayor to hunt and golf around the continent. Price admitted the same.

Meyer, who since 1998 has billed Mandeville more than $7 million in engineering fees, told auditors that he took the mayor on Meyer's private plane to go golfing at Pebble Beach, Calif.

It's less clear why auditors included McMath, who says he's a lifelong friend of the mayor's, in their report. While the developer acknowledges flying Price to Pebble Beach every year since 2003 and paying his $7,300 entrance fee for a golf tournament there and flying Price to Canada to hunt geese, the report doesn't reveal how Price was to have shown McMath favoritism.

The developer had several properties annexed by Mandeville after 2004, but that isn't suspicious on its face. Besides, the Planning and Zoning Commission isn't (or at least shouldn't be) under the mayor's control.

Even if the mayor can explain away the McMath gifts as nothing more than the developer's expressions of friendship, he can't say that about the three trips to Lake Tahoe, Nev., paid for by Tesco Controls, a company that provides control panels to the city.

Price told auditors that Kyle and Associates, which has had a landscaping contract with the city since 2001, paid for him and Councilman Jerry Coogan to go fishing off Shell Beach. (Despite the mayor's apparent admission, in its official response, the city denies the company gave Price or Coogan anything.)

The mayor also said that Blue Williams, LLP, which contracted with Mandeville to help them navigate FEMA's legal requirements, paid for him and Coogan to hunt in Lucedale, Miss. Coogan told auditors that a representative of that company also took him and the mayor on another hunting trip in Mississippi.

If Price is serious about breaking his addiction to alcohol, he should emerge from his substance abuse program much less likely to give ridiculous defenses for his behavior. But when Theriot's investigators talked to him, he was still in the land of denial. For example, Price said his golf trips to Pebble Beach should be charged to Mandeville because he looks around and sees architecture and public facilities and his seeing such things benefits Mandeville.

Using that logic, any Dungeness crab the mayor consumed in Northern California could be considered a benefit to his city's seafood festival. Anything good that happens to Price is experienced vicariously by the city he represents. The city just didn't know it was experiencing so much.

Does anybody run a 12-step program to end patronage addiction? Is there anywhere Price can go to learn how to endure the shakes and resist the free trip, the free meal, the quid that leads to the quo?

He better hope there is. Lest the political pressure rise against him and he's forced to quit both the perks and his position -- cold turkey.

Jarvis DeBerry is an editorial writer. He can be reached at 504.826.3355 or at jdeberry@timespicayune.com.